


punctilious

by Anonymous



Series: Danse Macabre [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Past Abuse, Self-Harm, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 11:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10188491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Hux hates cleaning up messes.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Can someone tell AO3 to quit being a dick and let me post stuff?

**punctilious**

 

He hated this, sometimes.

 

He hated this so fucking  _ much,  _ hated that Ben was so- so unbelievably  _ messy,  _ that he’d leave his clothes on the floor in  _ piles,  _ that he’d casually misplace things throughout the apartment, that he’d never fucking  _ clean up _ , and that may have been Ben’s problem, but it was a  _ problem  _ nonetheless.

 

And Hux despised it. He despised that laissez-faire attitude that Ben could walk around with, and yet it was the only thing he could focus on now; mulling over Ben’s imperfections as he lathers soap along his hands again, washing them for the fifth time in the span of twenty minutes. The skin along his knuckles, the pads of his fingers, was a bright red, sore and cracked and chapped, about to split open from the rigidity with which he held himself. Even the outline of white around the patches was more an irritant than anything; Hux needed to find gloves.

 

Gloves, which would need to match the fabric, patterning and color of his current attire, likely located on the right side of the closet in a box on the shelf beneath his shoes. Ordered sets of threes (he’d had to buy an extra pair to keep the pattern), grey in the middle; best choice, certainly, as grey would neither contrast with black and white, nor offset it.

 

Then, like a disgusting reminder, Hux’s eyes spotted a red shirt dropped near the shower, half inside-out and unfolded…

 

He rubbed at his eyes, blinked twice, looked down to his hands and began to wash them once more.

 

The skin felt as though it were entirely sucked dry of moisture, peeling back in layers like an onion or the shedding skin of a snake. Molting, it was called; Hux thought Ben would appreciate the analogy. He was a snake, perhaps, sleek and terrifying and always looking for something to attack… just as much as Hux, who hid inside his own skin and refused to let an ounce of  _ fragility _ be displayed in his posture, features,  _ actions. _

 

 

Hux picked at his skin with sharp nails, wondering if he’d be able to see his insides once he began pulling, if he’d unravel like a spool of thread. It had been foreseen, by who or what he didn’t know, but Brendol had realized it, and so had his monster.

 

Ben needed to come back.

 

He needed to fix everything he’d destroyed.

 

* * *

 

He’d been crying, and the emphatic weight of his tears still clung to his face, hanging in the air surrounding him as an ever-present testament to the weight of his failures. Hux was always failing, of course, could hardly adhere to his regiments, was ridiculously dumb at the center of it all. And now he was  _ crying,  _ as though he were some pathetic whelp of a child and not the twenty-six year old straight-edge he’d grown up to be.

 

It’s why, at long last, when the key turns in the lock, he finds himself standing before the door the moment Ben steps inside, his grey-gloved hands folded over his chest, sleeves drawn down his arms, a glare fixed on his normally indifferent visage.

 

“You left a red shirt in the bathroom.  _ Red,  _ Ben, and it was  _ wadded up,  _ thrown on the floor carelessly. And I found  _ lube  _ on the sheets this morning, still sticky. You weren’t careful, you  _ weren’t,  _ and now something even worse--”

 

“Hux--”

 

“I  _ hate  _ you.” Hux said, then, his fingers having begun the steady, rhythmic  _ taptaptap  _ against his black sleeves. “You march in here, and you ruin things, and I  _ hate you,  _ Ben, I fucking hate you.”

 

The sound of keys clattering against wood only made the sirens blare louder, as Hux extended a hand, pointing to the hallway behind his partner, disgusted. “Get  _ out-!” _

 

“Hux, you know I never would’ve-- fuck, if you’d just given me a moment to explain, or answered my calls instead of turning your phone off-”

 

“ _ Out,  _ Ben,  _ now.” _

 

_ “Armitage.”  _ Ben hisses, his hands finding the sleeves of Hux’s cardigan and grabbing his slender wrists, frowning when Hux took a step back.

 

“You  _ can’t,  _ you can’t be this close to me, it’s  _ not right, _ Ben.”

 

“What isn’t right?” Ben questioned,and his hands slid to either of the ginger’s pallid cheeks, thumbs brushing over his cheeks in an intimate gesture of fondness. “Breathe. In and out, alright? You need to calm down--”

 

“I  _ touched it,”  _ Hux replied, angrily. “Like-- like  _ he  _ did, he used to mess with my things, and they were all over the place… they threw my uniform on the ground, Ben, and they  _ shoved  _ me against the wall, tried to take me apart--”

 

Ben tapped his cheek again, a steady pattern of  _ one-two  _ that Hux seemed to settle into, blinking away the last of his frustration as if in realization, immediately reaching to straighten the collar of Ben’s shirt and smooth out the wrinkles in the fabric of his large, black jacket.

 

“Fuck, you’re a mess,” Hux says, but his hands are still shaking, lips still barely parted. “Always so messy, Ben, trashing my apartment. I had half a mind to get rid of the bloody thing once and for all.”

 

“You wouldn’t,” Ben chuckles. “It smells like me.”

 

“Unfortunate.” The older man grumbles, as Ben laces their fingers together, slowly rubbing the fabric in gentle circles.

 

Hux flinches.

 

“Ari,” Ben scolds him, looking down in concern.

 

“It was bleach, Solo, quit fretting.”

 

The comment wasn’t dignified with a response, only the sudden motion of Hux being dragged to a counter, lifted slightly from the floor and set upon a tiled surface, nimble fingers deftly peeling away the fabric laid across his scalded hands.

 

“Not as bad as it looks-”

 

“I’ll be the judge of that. Learn to accept some goddamn help.” A hand moves to ruffle Hux’s hair, stopping just as it reaches before pulling back, carefully considering. Then, there’s a shuffle of a drawer being opened, and a box is being tossed down on the counter, supplies rummaged through and spread out. Hux does his very best not to  _ scream, Ben, we just discussed this, organization, everything has a place, proper order, has to be right, right right right, you’re going to get me killed if you keep doing this, stop stop stop, ONE PLACE, STEADY, ORGANIZED-- _

 

There’s ointment being worked into the cracked and blistered skin, rubbed raw and bright underneath the dim lighting of the kitchen lamp. Ben’s thumbs are adequate at pressing into the joints and working the salve deep, familiarity present in his movements.

 

It makes sense, of course; Hux has seen the scars, dug deep into Ben’s forearms, the result of years spent as a disappointment to his family, never meeting expectations and never yielding results.

 

Hux knows that feeling intimately as well. Though, perhaps, there was a difference of a sort; after all, Ben hadn’t been violated to his very core as a means of showing his weakness, and he hadn’t been corrupted, torn open from the inside and laid bare under the eyes of too many  _ incompetent fools _ for his  _ disgusting nature,  _ his  _ monster, this disorder… _

 

Weak.

 

_ Sick. _

 

The bandages are being rolled along his fingers now, and wound tight around his palm, pinned with two clasps in as much a symmetrical fashion as possible.

 

“It will do,” Hux says. Then, as if reconsidering: “Thank you.”

 

“Of course.” Ben’s eyes are so open, so earnest and straightforward, smattering of clarity; he doesn’t mean to violate the sanctity of Hux’s rules and his order, he just can’t help himself. There are circles beneath his eyes, proving fact and setting it in stone. Ben’s hair is windswept, a tangled mane of black that Hux suddenly wants to brush and pull back, reveal more of that almost-symmetrical face and those almost-perfect features.

 

Ben is far from perfect, but sometimes it’s best to forget that. 

 

He’s  _ human.  _ And he’s…  _ good.  _ Even the voice incessantly nagging in Hux’s mind can discern that much, and he offers a slight quirk of his lips, approving.

 

“Can we lie on the couch?”

 

“Together?” Ben asks, and Hux nods. “I remember someone complaining last time about how my body is too big for that, how I take up the entire space--”

 

“You  _ do,”  _ Hux agrees.

 

“-- that I need to ‘move over, asshole, or take the floor’...”

 

“I did say that,” Hux says. 

 

Ben raises an eyebrow, as if to say  _ ‘see?’ _

 

“That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it.”

 

A hand cards through his hair, and Hux laughs, faintly, as hands slide around his waist and pull him into a large, well-sculpted and ever so  _ warm  _ pair of arms. He doesn’t bother protesting… there’s no need for anger now. Ben is here, and his hands feel soft and his chest is light and no longer filled to the brim with loathing.

  
Everything will be fine.


End file.
